Archive for February 20th, 2012

CHICAGO, ILÂ â€“ An advocate for sexual and domestic violence survivors, Illinois Lt. Governor Sheila Simon pledged to work with State Sen. Toi Hutchinson and the General Assembly to pass legislation that would fund rape crisis centers through an entrance fee on strip clubs that permit alcohol.

Simon said adult entertainment facilities that profit from the combination of nude dancing and alcohol should help pick up the tab for related social ills, such as rape, sexual assault, prostitution and other crimes. She likened the surcharge to using a gasoline tax to pay for road construction or gambling fees to pay for addiction services.

â€œAs a former domestic battery prosecutor, I see a connection between the alcohol-fueled exploitation of women and violence against women,â€ Simon said. â€œIt is only fair to require the people who profit from the adult entertainment industry to finance those who provide advocacy and counseling services to the victims of sexual assault.â€

Simon, who founded the domestic violence legal clinic at the Southern Illinois University School of Law, announced her support for Senate Bill 3348 on Friday alongside the billâ€™s sponsor, State Sen. Hutchinson, advocates from the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, and survivors of the commercial sex trade.

â€œIllinoisâ€™ budget woes have forced cuts to many social service organizations, including many that serve victims of rape and sexual assault, limiting the ability of sexually abused women to receive the treatment they need,â€ Hutchinson said.Â â€œThe legislation I have introduced is still in its infancy and is by no means a final plan for how we can deal with this issue.Â I am looking forward to sitting down with the adult entertainment industry to discuss ways they can be a part of the solution to this problem.

As introduced, the legislation would require strip club owners who serve or allow alcohol to be consumed on their premises to pay a $5-per-patron fee. The money would be funneled to the new Sexual Assault Prevention Fund, and the state would fund grants to community-based organizations that work to reduce sexual assault or aid crime victims. Similar legislation was upheld by the Texas Supreme Court last year.

The Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault asked Simon and Hutchinson to support the Illinois legislation as it deals with the stateâ€™s budget constraints. The coalitionâ€™s funding decreased $1.2 million the past three budget years, and one Chicago crisis center closed Dec. 31 due to funding struggles.

The strip club surcharge is a proactive, budget-neutral way to restore funding for critical violence prevention and rehabilitation services for women, Simon said.

â€œStrip clubs contribute to the objectification and sexual exploitation of women. Rape crisis centers respond to women exploited by sexual harassment, abuse, rape and trafficking.Â Our doors are open 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year. SB3348 is not the end of strip clubs, but a new beginning for helping victims recover from the trauma of sexual violence,â€ said Polly Poskin, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a not-for-profit corporation of 33 community-based sexual assault crisis centers and 26 satellite offices across Illinois.

Illinois is home to more than 100 strip clubs, and many serve or permit alcohol on their premises. Women who dance in strip clubs report a wide range of verbal, physical and sexual abuse at the workplace. Research also links strip clubs to trafficking, prostitution, and an increase in male sexual violence against both the women who work in the clubs and those who live and work in the surrounding areas.

â€œStrip clubs can increase the demand for other sexual services in a community. When more men are seeking to buy sex, pimps report to researchers that they meet the demand by bringing prostituted women and girls to the area,â€ said Lynne Johnson, director of policy and advocacy for the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, a non-profit that addresses the culture, institutions, and individuals that perpetrate, profit from, or support sexual exploitation.

Simon and Hutchinson said the next step is to work with Senate leaders to pass the regulatory legislation.

Princeton University Professor Dr. Cornel West shakes up Saint Sabina with righteous truth calling Father Michael L. Pfleger his â€œsoul-mate, soul companionâ€ who works with him â€œat the cross, in the blood, with a smile, throwing down for justiceâ€â€¦. and detailing black history like no other can.

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West acknowledged many people including Ariel President John Rogers, Dorian Carter from Ariel, Senator Jacqueline Collins, activist Wallace â€œGatorâ€ Bradley, Leonard Langston, and many others.

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West said he still hasnâ€™t gotten over the death of 70-year-old Nick Ashford of Motown and Soul Trainâ€™s Don Cornelius and others.Â Â â€œThere is a sense in which we were losing them before they die because the very tradition that they were absenting is being pushed to the margins and the peripheral.â€

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He spoke of Whitney Houston as being â€œhigh-level geniusâ€ and not just talent and one who was â€œgood looking.â€ These days, Dr. West said, talent is not just based on talent. Referring to Houston, he said she was a â€œgood lookingÂ Â black sister. These days if you donâ€™t look a certain way you hardly even have a chance to become a star,â€ said West.

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Saying some talent today is predicated on anything but talent, West said, â€œItâ€™s a cultural superficial spectacle and itâ€™s all about titillation, stimulationâ€¦so you may have your body stimulated but your soul may not be stirred but as long as they got your moneyâ€¦then all they want is success.â€

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West said he has gangster in him and he still has â€œgangster proclivity. Nothing but the blood turned me around, but I can still break loose any moment. Ainâ€™t nothing but the Holy Ghost holding me together.â€

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Saying he has been covered with the word by his mother and others, West said he is â€œfull of righteous indignation like Jesus in the temple I canâ€™t stand the fact that so many folks are catching hell and not enough people care about thatâ€¦.concerned about that.â€

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Referring to Black history, West asked, â€œWhere is the love? Who really caresâ€? â€œWho is willing to pay a price? Itâ€™s not about popularity.â€

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West also spoke about the wars saying we should not be killing the daughters and sons. â€œCollective punishment is immoral. Itâ€™s illegal. I donâ€™t care what color the President is. Ordering the bombs is wrong.â€

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Looking back at black leaders like Frederick Douglas, Ida B. Wells, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., West said, â€œ When you look at those firing prophetic figures, they are the leaven in the American Democratic loaf. There would be no American democracy without Fredrick Douglas, without Ida B. Wells, without Dr. Martin Luther King,â€¦.â€

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Referring to some blacks who may have felt hating whites would be the right thing to do after they enslaved African Americans, West said that would not be acceptable. â€œThey said no. Not at all. Weâ€™re not gangsters. Even if weâ€™re defeated for the moment, we will have our dignity and our magnanimity. Weâ€™d rather have some sense of morality than win and be thought to be like them. That is a fundamental lesson

of black history even in this highly confused age,â€ he stated.

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Dr. West what is needed today is free speech by people who are willing â€œto pay any cost because as you bear witness it gets you in contact with the tradition that produced you and like the Sankofa bird you refuse to move forward without moving backwards first to get connected to your source so that your roots become the very winds on your back.

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â€œWe need more free speech, plain speech, frank speech, too much deodorized speech. I want to keep it funky,â€ said West explaining that is why he keeps company with Bootsy Collins, an American funk bassist, singer and song writer.

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He also criticized the New York Police department for allegedly shooting 18-year-old Marley Graham, who did not have a gun, in the Bronx earlier this month after he ran into his home. West said Graham was shot for allegedly having marijuana. â€œNow, you get that kind of surveillance for a marijuana bag and yet we have a major catastrophe on Wall Street and they canâ€™t investigate or prosecute one of the gangsters or criminals who engaged in predatory lending, market manipulation, insider trading. That is how racist the criminal justice system is,â€ he bellowed.

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â€œâ€Weâ€™re in deep troubleâ€¦,â€ he said. â€œ

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The poor are being left behind, West said. â€œWho eats on K Street as a lobbyist for poor children, for the poor widows, for working people? Well, we have trade unions. Thatâ€™s only 11 percent. Democracy becomes an oligarchy. One percent at the top. Thank God of the Occupied Movement. They have the courage to stand up. Weâ€™re tired of the corporate greed. Weâ€™re tied of the roll of big money in politics. Weâ€™re tired of arbitrary military power against the week.â€

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â€œA lot of folk in the black communityâ€ say, â€œwell, it looks too vanilla for me.â€ â€œAnybody who speaks the truth and willing to bear witness for the weak and vulnerable, Christians ought to be right there. Not black enough for you? Blackness is not a moral category. If folk are talking about people, youâ€™re pushing. Are you just talking about the poor on the vanilla side? What about those on the reservations, our indigenous brothers and sisters? What about the brown brothers and sisters? What about the yellow brothers and sisters? What about the black onesâ€?

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When people ask about student loans, West said, â€œ They are upset because investment banks that are sitting on $2.3 trillion dollars at this very moment have assets to interest free loans but students must pay 21 percent interest on their loans. That is not fair. That is not just. They have a right to be deeply upset about that, and we ought to be upset about some of the loans we have to take in terms of the interest, but we get played off each other so easily.â€

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Speaking of blacks who fought for our rights and have died, West said, â€œthose who came before had an integrity. They were never up for sale whether you agreed with them politically or ideologically. Angela Davis was a Communist. Iâ€™m a Christian. I love her because she was never up for sale. That is the kind of Christianity we need and that is the only way weâ€™re going to keep the blessed black history alive.â€

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Chinta Strausberg is a Journalist of more than 33-years, a former political reporter and a current PCC Network talk show host. You can e-mail Strausberg at: Chintabernie@aol.com.

Chicago, IL – Howard Morgan, a former Chicago Policeman shot 28 times by Chicago Policemen, was found guilty of attempted murder.

The Rev. Harold E. Bailey, President of the PCC Network, and Maureen â€˜Moeâ€™ Forteâ€™, taped 2-segments of Â â€˜The Howard Morgan Storyâ€™, where the victim Howard Morganâ€™s wife, Rosalind, gives an account of what she said took place with her husband.

Howard Morgan miraculously lived and later was acquitted in 2007 on two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and one count of aggravated discharge of a firearm,

Also giving an account of what took place in the Chicago/County Criminal Courts event is Brother Lionel Muhammad, student of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad tells what the Stateâ€™s Attorney stated about the victim Howard Morgan during the court procedureâ€¦which was shocking!

With more questions than answers: How can Howard Morgan be guilty of attempted murder, if he was acquitted for firing his gun in 2007?

Morgan has no known criminal record and why has much of the mainstream press never carried the story. In earlier years, the only media personality to file an interview with Rosalind Morgan was Chinta Strausberg (The Strausberg Report) with the PCC Network.

The entire interviews may be viewed on: http://probationchallenge.org â€˜The Truth Networkâ€™ â€¦ 24/7 and On-Demand, or on Facebook: Harold E. Bailey. Rev. Bailey said â€˜The world-courts will now determine the truth and make its decision accordantly.â€

Baltimore, MD (BlackNews.com) — Two youth groups, Watoto From The Nile and the Urban Youth Initiative Project (U.Y.I.P), team up on Friday, February 24, 2012 to headline a “Ultimate Black History Presentation and Concert”. The event will feature live performances, ancestral reenactments, community vendors, and much more. Starting at 7:00pm, this event will be located at Sojourner-Douglass College on 200 N. Central Ave in Baltimore, MD. Tickets and further information can be acquired by contacting Jabari Natur at 410-303-4120 or Heru Fatiu at 443-257-2491.

Net proceeds from this presentation and concert will be used to help Watoto From The Nile continue to create positive music and help U.Y.I.P pay for a permanent building to house their youth program.

Everyday thousands of inner city children listen to self-destructive music and are in need of programs that deal with character development. In an incredibly special event, some of Baltimoreâ€™s brightest children will showcase their special talents, not just to fundraise, but to continue the legacy of Black history.

Watoto From The Nile are a young African-centered, thought provoking, socially and culturally conscious music group. In 2011, they put out a groundbreaking song, “Letter to Lil Wayne”, which was a riveting message aimed at stopping the negative images of Black women in Lil Wayneâ€™s music. The music video now has over one million views on Youtube.com.

Founded in 2006, The Urban Youth Initiative Project,Inc is a nonprofit, community based, social empowerment organization designed to facilitate a process conducive to developing the highest good in youth. Their mission is to prepare African American children to carry out their historic mission as the future leaders of African people. Through their programs and activities, they inform our children of their historical duty and cultural obligations.

“We have to start teaching our children the truth about their cultural identity,” said Jabari Natur, father and manager of Watoto From The Nile. “If we donâ€™t, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and Rick Ross are going to continue to be their role models.”

Watoto From The Nile and U.Y.I.P are both based in Baltimore, Maryland and are available for interviews and live demonstrations.

The Lira Ensemble, which specializes in Polish music, presents its highly praised African-American/Polish-American concert performed by the NGOMA Group of African-American performers and the Lira Singers, Sunday, March 4, 2012, 3 p.m., at the DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 East 56th Place, ChicagoÂ (at 57th Street and south Cottage Grove in Washington Park ).

Admission is free â€“ to both the museum and the concert

The concert is presented in celebration of DuSable Day, honoring the memory and legacy of Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable â€“ the â€œFather of Chicagoâ€ â€“ the cityâ€™s first settler and businessman.Â The Museum will celebrate the day with performances and special events from 12PM through 5p.m.Â Admission is free for all.Â

This is the fifth performance of Liraâ€™s African-American/Polish-American concert at the DuSable Museum . For the past 20 years, the Lira Ensemble has produced cross-ethnic concerts with African Americans and Latinos that have been lauded by community leaders.Â In 2007, the National Museum of Mexican Art presented its Sor Juana Award to Lucyna Migala, Liraâ€™s artistic director and general manager, in recognition of this work.Â In 2001, Lira won the Human Relations Award of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations for this series. At the award presentation, the Commission commented:Â â€œCombining social responsibility with artistic excellence, Lira produces and performs joint concerts with artists of other racial and ethnic groups, viewing art as a universal language with the power to confront prejudice and misunderstanding.â€

The concert features Polish folk and patriotic music as well as various forms of African-American music, including blues, spirituals, and gospel. Â It includes narrations that point out surprising similarities between the histories and experiences of African Americans and Polish Americans in Chicago . Marcia Berry, director of NGOMA, and Lucyna Migala will serve as narrators.Â The Lira Singers will be conducted by Mina Zikri, resident conductor of the Ensemble.

The NGOMA Group consists of artists from throughout the black community of Chicago.

The Lira Ensemble is the nation’s only professional performing arts company specializing in Polish music, song, and dance. The Lira company is artist-in-residence at Loyola University Chicago.

This African-American/Polish-American event is funded in part by Kraft, by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency and the CityArts Program of the Chicago Department of Tourism and Culture.

Admission to both the DuSable Museum and the concert are free on March 4th and free parking is available adjacent to the museum. For more information about this cross-cultural event, please call the Lira Ensemble at 773-508-7040Â Â ï‚·Â www.liraensemble.org

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